The link Fergie provided is actually here [blogspot.com], the original had a space in it. That article is absolutely damning if even some of it is accurate. As one example I was surprised to see them dissing Bhavin Turakhia, head of ICANN Registrar Directi, whom I thought was one of the better registrars, but follow the link and look who his main sponsors are.
As the RBNblog states:

This also begs the question of the commercial approach of ICANN apparently supporting unfettered registrar development and who it allows in sponsorship or election.

Exactly. This ICANN greed for accrediting just about anyone who has money and its subsequent hands off approach they take with egregious registrar behaviour has long been a beef of mine. That was more to do with poor service, misleading advertising, seft-registering the 'best' names during the.info and.biz sunrise periods, and having the same ultimate entity owning and controlling numerous registrars (which always puzzled me, but now it makes sense). And now it has come to this, ICANN's greed and inaction has led to wholly unhealthy connections to organized crime.
If ICANN, and the US Government, had not been (perhaps wilfully) blind to abuses in the first place this probably couldn't have happened. Now it is almost certainly too late to do much about it. Thanks for less than nothing ICANN.-g